Out of the Silent Planet

Title: Out of the Silent Planet (28/39)
Author: ianthe_waiting
Rating: MA/NC-17
Disclaimer: The Harry Potter books and their characters are the property of JK Rowling. This is a work of fan-fiction. No infringement is intended, and no money is being made from this story. I am just borrowing the puppets, but this is my stage.
Genre: Plot driven smut, Darkfic, Romance, Drama, Angst...
Warnings: M/F, Bondage, slight non-con, voyeurism, oral, anal, Dom/sub issues, Dark!Draco, and HBP spoilers.
Summary: Post-Hogwarts - Hermione Granger fulfills Severus Snape's final wish, to journey to Japan to ‘retrieve' something of importance. Set eleven years after HBP.
Author's Notes: This is my first DM/HG ficlet, so please be kind to the newbie! The title of this fic is taken from C.S. Lewis' book, first in the Perelandra Chronicles.

MAJOR WARNINGS!! This chapter has a bit of squick...non-con, necro, mutilation, and other unsavory things. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!


Many thanks to kazfeist for improving this chapter!



Out of the Silent Planet
Chapter Twenty-Eight – Of trials and failures



The memory of waking that morning in his own filth made Draco want to get up and scrub his skin again, but he laid still before the dying fire, his eyes reflecting the embers. The sky was beginning to lighten outside and Draco turned on his back among the throw pillows and glanced back through the open doors to the bedchamber and the window beyond. The bars were still in place, a reminder of the trial… In fact, if one were to look closely, there were all sorts of reminders of the time he had spent in that room. The elves could never erase the gouges in the plaster ceiling or in the walls, or erase the black stains of poison and blood out of the veins of the marble floor. The walls had been painted a dark red to mask the brown stains, for blood permeated the wood underneath, and the smell of ozone was barely masked by freshening charms. Draco had barely slept in that room since his return to the Manor…and he knew he would once again have to either move to another set of chambers or tear out everything from the room and begin anew.

Slowly, rolling back to gaze into the fire, Draco sighed. He had an overwhelming sense that he had come back too early…too soon, and yet, in some way, too late. He felt uncomfortable in his own home, and the thought of having to pick up again his life in Britain was almost frightening. He had been content while in New Zealand, even in the Americas…not many were familiar with the Malfoy family, let alone the Malfoy heir. If anything was said, it was about Lucius and his execution, of which Draco had in Japan. Draco could have lived a life of anonymity outside of Britain to a certain degree, and he had literally dared himself to return to his homeland and face the memories without fear.

But the fear was getting to him, seeping in through the cracks of his icy exterior like noxious fumes, and suddenly Draco Malfoy doubted himself.

The only explanation and obvious cause was all to do with Hermione Granger. Oh, how he hated her, and all the same, wanted her.

Nothing had truly been resolved, not in the manner that suited him. He had survived the trials only to find himself back at a place where he was as scared as when he had to murder Albus Dumbledore…he was back on the Astronomy Tower, steeling his resolve, and failing miserably.

Draco raked his hands over his face at the memory flooding his brain. He did not want to think about it, it had been thought about and thought about…and thought about. If only he could Obliviate the memory from his brain, smooth out that wrinkle and live his life in ignorance.

It had been that time in his life that Vulcan had used to his advantage.

How would one destroy a soul? Piece by piece…and that night, and the flight, which resulted in Draco’s eleven-year imprisonment, had been a piece that Vulcan meant to exploit.

* * *


The words were muddled and strange, but Draco could read the lips of his sixteen-year-old self, and those bluish-tinged lips of Albus Dumbledore. What was said was insignificant; it was what Draco was seeing that was what inevitably mattered.

The eerie, green glow of the Dark Mark floating over the castle illuminated the tower, Dumbledore’s sagging body against the battlements, and Draco’s pale hair and hand, which quavered whilst holding his old wand.

As a spectator, Draco, the older and wiser Draco, watched the scene in horror, embarrassment and growing anger. And when the young Draco’s hand began to lower, and the others he had allowed into the castle arrived, the older Draco could not help but feel a wave of relief…he had not killed Dumbledore…he had not killed Dumbledore…

‘You failed.’

The scene continued, Greyback snarling, the Carrows cackling and cajoling, and then Severus arriving…and casting the Killing Curse.

“No!” Draco bellowed as the Headmaster’s body flew as if pulled by unseen wires, up and over the battlements and out of sight…

‘You failed…’

Draco’s eyes were riveted to his younger self, and then to Severus, pulling him along like some misbehaving child. The vision changed, Draco seemingly pulled along with his younger self, running through the halls of Hogwarts, Severus pulling him roughly. Across the grounds, with Potter on his heels…and Severus shouting for him to run to the edge of the grounds… Potter shouting, throwing curses, hexes, his horrible verdant eyes glowing with anger and power.

‘You failed miserably, can you not do anything right, Draco?’

Running…running and crying, tears, snot and sweat streaming down his face, Draco watched himself make it to the edge of the grounds and turn, his wide, childlike eyes reflecting the Dark Mark floating hazily over the castle and the smell of burning that wafted from Hagrid’s engulfed hut.

The shadows of Potter and Severus struggling were long in the light of the burning hut, but Draco could wait no longer, and with a crack, he left Hogwarts behind forever.

Darkness fell over the scene, and Draco, the unwilling spectator, felt bitter coldness grip his body. In the dark, Draco felt afraid, wondering if his body was truly as taut and tensed as it seemed…or if his mind were playing an elaborate trick on him. He knew that his body was lying in the bedchamber in the Manor, so why did he feel nearly numb and the hairs on his arms seem to stand on end?

‘You are a disgrace to your family, Draco. You have failed us…’

The voice finally registered…Lucius…

Like a curtain rising on a dim stage, Draco was now watching a much younger version of himself, stumbling through a rainy forest of pines and bracken, the rain pressing unruly platinum locks against a sickly pale face. The cold was enveloping and inescapable, and slowly, Draco realized where he was…

Cradling his left arm, teeth chattering, clothing ragged and muddy, Draco watched himself stumble, the bracken scratching his skin, drawing blood on a near bloodless face. In the distance was the cave, the mouth dark and inviting…and inside it, he fell, rainwater dripping from his body.

The knife had been hidden in his boot, and when he drew the blade out, the silver glinted in the half-light. This was it…time to hack away what had been rotting and throbbing…the day he cut off his arm and buried it in the mud of forest floor…in a far away land.

‘You are not my son; you are a changeling…a bastard child…not mine, not my disgrace!’

The first cut hurt the worst, but the pain from the Mark swallowed all other pain. And Draco felt his stomach turn at the sight of his own blood and the sound of tearing flesh. Blood splattered the ground and the rock, and tears were streaming down his young, gaunt face. The boy began sawing at his arm, gritting his teeth and breathing shallowly. Blood was spraying into his mouth, turning his perfectly white teeth scarlet.

Draco was screaming for it to stop, he did not want to see this…he did not want to remember this…he did not want any of this…

“You fool! Stop it! Fucking stop it!”

Minutes became hours, and finally the boy fell into the darkness, unconscious, his arm strangely blackened. The boy was pale and almost glowing white compared to the darkness of the small cave, and when Severus found the boy…Draco saw himself and what he had done all those years ago.

Severus seemed to be carrying a child in his arms, his mouth moving and spluttering curses. The boy was like a puppet with its strings cut, coated in earth and blood, pale silver eyes rolled back up into its head and its mouth open and bloodlessly white.

Draco felt his stomach turn, and retched, but nothing came.

The scene ended with Severus running through the forests with a doll-like Draco in his arms, and soon darkness overtook him again.

‘Coward, coward, unworthy whelp…your mother died for your sins…you made me do it because you ran away. She suffered for your sins, and I so did not want to kill my lovely Narcissa…’

The boy was staring into the surface of the water, seeing a face that was not his. The glamour was perfect, and only certain facial nuances remained the same. This figure Draco watched now was Matsumoto Ryu, his other self.

In the surface of the bath, he gazed down at himself, sneering and listening as nearby Pansy Parkinson-Higgs was talking about how wonderful the ryokan was…how exotic and how secluded…and Hanako was wishing Pansy a nice and restful evening. The dark-haired, one-armed man turned slowly, his yukata slightly damp from the moisture in the air and an erection prominent tenting the front of the black fabric...

Walking down the hall, the lights flickering out as he went, Draco watched the boy stop just at Pansy’s door…alone in her room while her husband was drinking with the rest of their party on the other side of the inn. Breathing audibly, the boy used his only hand to open the panel door, and slide into the room like a shadow.

The room was cool and dim, and as the dark boy moved soundlessly toward the futon, Draco watched. The boy seemed to pant like a wild animal.

“Stop…” Draco growled at his young, darker self, but it was useless.

The boy fell to his knees at Pansy’s feet, and with a flick of his wrist, the heavy comforter was blown off of the slender body of his old classmate. There was no sound; the boy had moved with Seeker-like quality, casting a Silencing spell on his prey, and a binding spell to keep her still…

Pansy’s dark eyes were wide with fear, gazing up at her captor as he ripped at her yukata until her small breasts were bared to the air. She whimpered, her mouth moving soundlessly, tears pooling in her eyes, as he tasted her fear with a sharp and probing tongue. He grasped her left breast, tasting it, biting the nipple and drawing blood.

The dark monster was muttering under his breath, and as Draco, the unwilling spectator, listened, he retched.

“…whore, filthy whore…I will fuck you…I will use you…I will dispose of you. Whore…filthy whore…”

She was crying, begging, trying to speak or move…and the dark one dragged his tongue across her face, down her body to the juncture of her thighs. And when he tasted her, he groaned into her body. Ripping away his clothing, he stroked himself against her, biting her, marking her…

“I will never let you forget me…everyone will forget me but you…”

And he took Pansy until he was sated and spent.

Draco wished he could look away, wished he did not have to see Pansy cry, her mouth moving to say his true name but no sound filling the air. She remained very still when his darker self had entered her, resigned that she was a victim, and praying to whatever god that her suffering would be over soon. Draco knew that it would be a suffering that would last longer that just those moments when he had taken her…that she would die because of him…knowing him from the very moment he had touched her.

When the dark shadow of a former self pulled away from Pansy’s sweaty and pale body to kneel at her feet, Draco saw a flicker of his true face, and the pain, anger, and hatred that poured out of his body like blood…

‘Filthy whore, a womb to fill and breed, filthy slag…’ Lucius’ voice chuckled.

Pansy was shivering when the shadow moved away, and gazing down at her, Draco could feel nothing but remorse. If only he had not hated her, or hated himself, perhaps he would not have caused her untimely death…if only, if only…

Draco could feel the vomit rising in his throat; he could feel the pain as slowly Pansy faded into Hermione Granger…in a similar pose and staring up at him, a face full of pleading. She shivered, her hands bound above her head. The dark figure thrust into Hermione Granger’s supple form, eliciting the most heavenly sound and Draco felt his own body, removed from the scene, respond.

Floating like a spirit, Draco moved closer to Hermione, to her side, and watched her move against the boy. The sound of flesh slapping flesh, the vision of Hermione’s face contorted in exquisite pleasure, it was too much to see…it made Draco want her again, to see those honey eyes reflect wanting…wanting of him…

And just like that, the vision changed, and it was no longer the crippled boy thrusting into Hermione Granger’s body, but Vulcan, the crippled god…black, smelling of sulphur, and frightening to look upon. Draco’s eyes watered at the scene, Hermione Granger rolling onto her side as Vulcan grasped her right leg, straddling the left. She was staring Draco in the eye, tears streaming down her face, but her mouth emitting sounds that seemed to fuel her lover to continue…

…harder…faster…deeper…Draco…

Vulcan hissed his passion, his large hands blackening Hermione’s skin with bruises, pressing fire kisses that scalded the inner flesh of her right knee.

“No…” Draco muttered as Hermione whispered his name while Vulcan violated her body, burning her body with his touch. “You cannot have her…” he whispered.

‘Why not, boy?’

“She is mine,” Draco forced between clenched teeth.

Vulcan’s mouth twisted into an evil snarl as he continued thrusting into Hermione’s body, causing her to scream and her skin to begin smoking from Vulcan’s fiery hands. Draco could smell the burning flesh and he felt his stomach twist painfully.

‘You have no claim on this mortal… You cannot mark her like I can mark her…scald my name into her bone and sinew.’

Draco could not look away if he wanted to…Hermione was calling his name, her eyes boring into his own.

‘She does not need you, boy…it was never you she loved, it was me.’

Vulcan was like a smoky shadow, his skin black as pitch, his eyes literally balls of fire. His muscles rippled as he thrust into Hermione’s body, his thick phallus tearing her full body so that blood began to ooze from her core. Vulcan grunted, moving his scalding hands to clutch her breasts, burning her nipples between the knuckles of his thick hands into blackened nubs.

“No… I had her first… I had her love first,” Draco breathed, the brutality of what he was seeing making him want to dig his eyes out of his skull.

‘Did you? Did you really?’ Vulcan spat, and Draco felt his jaw quivering as he watched Vulcan pull his hands away from Hermione’s breasts…now ruined from burning, blood oozing from her chest.

Hermione was screaming, screaming to be killed, screaming to be released, pleading with Draco to help her…

Draco was gnashing his teeth, feeling one of his molars crack in his mouth. As much as he wanted to move, as much as he willed his body to move, it was impossible.

“This isn’t real,” Draco muttered, a dull throb of pain moving through his face from the broken tooth.

Vulcan choked, trying to laugh as he stiffened and emptied himself inside Hermione. The effect of Vulcan’s climax was horrifying, and Draco moaned helplessly as fire seemed to glow inside Hermione’s belly and her skin began to crack and blacken. The smell was familiar, and Draco knew he should have known the smell of burning, live flesh from his initiation into the Death Eaters… The horror of taking the Mark, the fear and then the Revel that followed, where Draco saw death for the first time, as his new compatriots raped and burned Muggle women…

The fire consumed what was left of the living vision of Hermione Granger, her screams cut short as the fire charred her throat…her eyes leaking tears that were soon evaporated, those amber eyes pleading with Draco…

And finally Draco could shut his eyes and shut the image of Hermione’s burning body from his mind.

‘Should I show you something real, Draco? Should I shock you with something true?’ Vulcan hissed, his voice like whistling hot steam, like burning coals shifting in a furnace, like hot iron being struck by a smithy’s hammer.

“Shut up…I want this over. I want this over NOW!” Draco screamed, his eyes slamming open with a painful force of will.

And what he saw before his eyes confused him.


The sun was streaming through the large windows on either side of the bed which rose up on a dais, two marble steps up to a lavish velvet-lined four-poster made of rosewood. The walls were papered with lush green velvet in ornate floral designs, and the air smelled faintly of perfume. Draco had seen the bedroom only a handful of times in his lifetime, most of those moments had been as a small child, and the last time had been with Shacklebolt and Chang…

His parent’s bedroom…a sanctuary that he was never allowed to enter after the age of five. It was the room in which he had been conceived and it had been the room where his mother had died.

Draco’s eyes moved about the room, noticing that the water clock that had been damaged in a Ministry raid was about to chime three o’clock. He moved to the window, at the right of the bed, and could just make out the reflection of his naked body in the glass. It was summer and the garden below the windows was blooming with colour.

When the clock chimed, Draco jumped and turned, the sudden break in the almost complete silence had unsettled him. But the next sound unsettled him more…

“No! Gods, no!”

The double doors to the room burst open with such a force that they bounced off the green papers walls and almost shut upon themselves. But what flew through the door made Draco start…

Narcissa Malfoy toppled gracelessly through the doors and rolled upon the thick-carpeted floor to the foot of the steps leading up to the bed. Draco went to kneel next to his mother, to say her name, but he found that his hands passed through her form as if he were a ghost and his voice was stoppered inside his throat. Her long silver hair was filthy and falling over her narrow shoulders in matted clumps of blood, dust and filth. Her face was gaunt and paler than Draco could ever remember seeing it. A hideous bruise marred her sharp jaw line on the left side of her face and the pale gray dress that she was so fond of wearing while at home was in strips and tatters. Draco could even smell his mother, smelling of dank, damp, mildew, dust and old books. He had never seen his mother like this, never so feral looking, never so barbaric.

Her eyes were wide and her hands, the usually beautifully manicured nails bitten down to the quick, grasped for what Draco could only assume would have been her willow wand.

Draco stepped back in surprise as his mother thrashed upon the floor, her blue eyes searching the room, and eventually falling to the half opened doors, her breathing stilled as she listened. His chest felt as if it were about to collapse in on itself just studying his mother acting like nothing more than a frightened animal.

What was he seeing?

His mother began shuddering violently, her eyes searching the door and then the room…for a place to hide. Whatever she had been hearing, Draco now heard for himself…footfalls, heavy footfalls that were far too familiar.

When the doors opened slowly, Draco held his breath at the person that entered the room…he had not seen this person in years and to see him again brought back so many memories best forgotten.

His mother had not moved from her vulnerable spot on the floor, but she still shook, her breath escaping her mouth in ragged pants. The fear rolled off her lithe form in palpable waves, for before her and before Draco’s ghostly form stood Lucius Malfoy.

“It is fitting that I should finally corner you here, Narcissa, after days of trying to flush you out of the very walls of our home,” Lucius said softly, his voice even and calm. He shut the doors behind his back, his face impassive, blank.

Draco studied his father, noting the grey streaks and thinning of his father’s hair about his temples, and the emptiness of his stormy eyes. His father seemed somewhat diminished inside his usual garb of black slacks, boots, and Jacobean frock coat. Lucius had aged, and considering what Draco remembered about the last time he had seen his father, Lucius had aged poorly.

“The game is over, ‘Cissa, and I think we both know what is going to happen now.”

Draco blinked, what as he seeing?

Narcissa Malfoy wailed suddenly, her entire body convulsing with fear. It was obvious that she lacked the strength to stand or escape, and no matter how badly Draco wished it, he simply could not make himself be known to his mother…he could not help her.

Lucius moved across the room and wrenched his wife upwards to her feet. He held her at arm’s length, his face twisting in disgust at the look of his mate. With a shove, Lucius pushed Narcissa back so that she fell sharply upon the marble steps leading up to their marriage bed. Draco winced at the sound of a bone snapping and Narcissa crumpled, cradling her left wrist.

“Get up, Cissa…I want one last look at you before I end your miserable life,” Lucius drawled, his voice still even, but Draco noted that there was a flatness to everything about his father…as if his soul had been sucked out by the Dementors in Azkaban and only something of a shadow of Lucius remained.

Narcissa Malfoy struggled to her feet, still cradling her wrist tightly against her side. The wild, dishevelled look reminded Draco that she was indeed a Black…so much like Sirius Black in the mug shot from Azkaban. He wondered idly if he had looked so feral in his own moments of madness.

“You…you…” Narcissa began, swaying on her feet, her eyes darting about for a path to escape. “You will never find him, none of you will…”

Lucius’ face twisted again, trying to form his trademark smirk, but failing miserably. Instead Lucius looked bored as he pulled his wand from a pocket in his coat, his hand frail, weak, and shaking slightly as if his wand were too heavy.

“Draco is a lost cause…a product of a weak-minded bitch of a Black. No…I am not so worried about Draco, my dear wife. It is you that I am worried about now. You nearly made it off the grounds, you nearly called the Ministry… What has made you so mad as to betray me, to betray the Dark Lord, Cissa?”

Narcissa Malfoy quickly gained control over her shivering and stood up straighter, her chin jutting forward with pride as she spoke. “Our son and the sins you had placed upon him…I could not let him become like you…impotent in mind and soul…” she panted, Draco only able to see her profile. Her words made Draco burn inside, and as she continued, addressing Lucius’ blank shell and his outstretched wand, Draco realized that the burning he felt in his chest was that of love and pride for his mother.

“Draco was born to succeed you in every way; the son will not carry on what the father began; the son will build upon his father’s mistakes. Even your own father did better for the Malfoy name than you…he was not impotent of the mind; he was not a follower of a lunatic mind. And what have you done? You have destroyed this family, as you have destroyed so many families… I wish you had died in Azkaban, I wish I had left you after Draco was born…”

Lucius said nothing as his wife’s voice rose to screaming, but he narrowed his eyes slightly. Draco had taken in this minuscule gesture and moved his mouth to tell his mother to stop…the old fire that had often haunted Draco’s nightmares now flickered in Lucius’s eyes.

Narcissa finished her screaming as she finally noticed Lucius’ eyes. He had not been totally defeated; he was not totally worn thin…and when Lucius moved to grasp his wife’s neck with his left hand, Draco felt his stomach twist.

Lucius pressed his wand tip into Narcissa’s neck, his face clouding, his mouth moving soundlessly. Draco’s mother was laughing, her laughter merely a wheeze, but laughing.

“I hate you…” she wheezed between laughs. “I have hated you for years…”

Lucius gritted his teeth and pushed his wife backwards again, sending Narcissa sliding across the marble dais. She was still laughing, her matted hair falling into her face and blood beginning to trickle from her elegant nose to her upper lip.

“Your touch is repulsive…you never satisfied me…you are a princox, impotent, weak, false…” she muttered.

Draco wished she would stop, her face was almost unrecognizable, but so much like Bellatrix’s…in its madness. He could not believe that the woman huddled next to the bed was his mother.

“Shall those be your last words, Cissa?” Lucius drawled moving to plant a foot on the steps, his wand rising to point at his wife.

“I curse you, Lucius, I curse your name, I curse your soul and I curse you for the sake of our son whom you have ruined. You have doomed your bloodlines to end with your idiocy!” Narcissa spat, her face triumphant.

Draco felt his heart clench as Lucius uttered a cutting curse, and gasped as his mother’s clothes were cut away. Narcissa only continued to laugh maniacally, letting the rags, which had once been her favourite dress, fall away. Draco wanted to turn his eyes from the sight of his mother’s naked flesh, her bony frame, clearly malnourished and covered in scratches, bruises and filth.

Lucius moved closer as Narcissa struggled to her bare feet. She stretched out her arms, the broken left wrist swollen and distended. It was a gesture of welcoming, and Draco knew that it was his mother’s final resignation to her fate…that was what he was seeing…

“I loved you once, husband, and in death, I curse you,” Narcissa uttered, her smile prefect, her small breasts rising and falling with every pant.

Draco felt his own voice reverberate past his lips in a howl as Lucius raised his wand again and growled his killing words, the ones that sent his mother’s head flying and the blood gushing up from her neck like a fountain of red.

As his mother’s body crumpled and her head fell to land upon the bed, eyes wide and mouth set in a near sardonic grin, Draco watched as Lucius caught his mother’s body in his arms, dropping his wand. The blood sprayed into Lucius’ face, coating his pale skin in rash colour, staining his hair almost black.

Draco had hoped that this would be the end of the vision, his stomach twisting and his body trying to expel bile and vomit, but it was not the end…

Lucius grasped his wife’s body, the blood ebbing and merely trickling from the decapitated ends of arteries. Lucius was crying, his whole body shuddering as he cradled his wife’s nude body. Draco retched as Lucius laid his mother’s body upon the floor, kneeling over it and rubbing his bloody face into the quickly cooling breasts.

“Cissa…Cissa…” Lucius cried, his lips brushing the nipple of Narcissa’s dead breast. “Why did you betray me?”

The room was growing darker as summer rain clouds gathered outside. It was as if the weather was reflecting the situation. Draco wished he could shut his eyes as his father kissed his mother’s dead and headless body, watched his father press himself between his mother’s pale thighs, watched his father penetrate his mother’s body with his own flesh, watched his father violate his mother’s body and empty himself into her dead womb.

Draco was blinded by tears, retching at the sound of his father’s moaning, wanting anything for this to end, for his father to die…

His mother had not only been murdered, but her body had been violated. The smell of sweat, filth, tears and blood was imprinted permanently in Draco’s mind, and he would have given anything to escape the scene, escape the sight of his father’s flaccid penis pulling out of his mother’s body, escape the sight of his father moving to the bed and gathering his mother’s head in his arms and press kisses upon her lips, forcing her jaw open to push his tongue inside…

“Gods, stop…no…no…make it stop…” Draco repeated, his voice thick with tears and retching.

And when his father finally left the room and left Narcissa Malfoy’s body and blood to dry, Draco felt his body twitch, felt the vomit come, felt the piss hot on his thighs. His ghostly form fell to its knees, and his ghostly hands rested on the carpet as he knelt, gagging.

‘What would you give to forget this?’

Anything…anything…

‘What would you give to forget this life?’

Everything…everything…

Draco caught his breath, the room now dark and the rain pounding against the windows. He glanced up to the bed where his mother’s head rested upon the pillows, and next to it sat the familiar dark shape of Vulcan.

Dark fingers curled into a few strands of his mother’s matted hair, and Draco opened his mouth to scream at the dark apparition, but nothing came forth. He wanted to scream at the god not to touch his mother, he wanted to scream at the god to help his mother…but it all came out as gasping, snot and tears.

‘I will erase this day for you, Draco…I will fix it all…’

Vulcan’s expression was one of sadness, one of sympathy, and as the blackened hands moved to take up Narcissa Malfoy’s head in his hands, Draco was nodding, his body shaking with grief.

His mother…his mummy…the one woman who had loved him all his life… She had been almost powerless to stop the events that had been set in motion to destroy him, but she had died loving him and cursing all that would hurt her son…her Draco. Vulcan moved to kneel next to the nude, rigoured body and as Draco sobbed like a child on his hands and knees, he watched as Vulcan replaced his mother’s head on her shoulders. With a breath of fire, Vulcan exhaled in Narcissa’s face and Draco watched in amazement as all the blood that stained the marble and the drapes of the bed drained backward into the still body before him. With another fiery exhale, the skin knitted back together and the bruises, scratches and dirt faded away…next the rags of what had been a dress moved like snakes to wrap around the body, becoming clean, becoming whole.

‘Arise, Narcissa Black, arise from your dreaming…’ Vulcan whispered, his lips brushing the now clean cheek of Draco’s mother.

And when Narcissa’s pale eyes opened, Draco gasped in relief…

“Draco?”

Narcissa sat, with Vulcan’s help, and within an instant, Draco felt his mother’s comforting arms around his own nude form…his mother had never died, his mother had never become mad…all the blood, all the madness was gone.

Narcissa cradled her son, worrying over his thin body, worrying over his filthy skin, worrying over him like she always had when something was out of sorts.

“What has happened to you, Draco?” she cried, her hands framing his face. “Where is Hobbin, why haven’t you been tended to?”

Draco said nothing, his eyes suddenly dry and trained on his mother’s beautiful face.

“Hermione? Hermione, where are you?” Narcissa called to the door of the bedroom, and Draco’s brow furrowed.

Hermione?

* * *


Draco could not stop blinking and yawning, and besides feeling strangely numb, he felt very grounded huddling in his mother’s arms. He could not place a name on the exact emotion he was feeling, but for some reason he felt as if he had just been hit by a strong Stunner and was just now shaking off the affects. Something was odd, he thought, as his mother conjured a robe to throw over his shoulders and kept calling a name that seemed to make no sense in his mother’s bedroom.

“Mum…”

“Draco, darling, Hermione is coming, don’t worry…”

His brow furrowed in confusion.

“How did I get here?”

Narcissa fretted over Draco, smoothing down his long silver hair, rubbing circles into his back and rubbing his limbs as if he were nearly frozen. His left arms tingled slightly and as he glanced down at it, confusion set in deeper. The muscle was tensed and the silvery hairs on the back of his arm were standing up. As he pushed away from his mother gently, he studied the clean and unmarked skin on the inside of his arm…and he knew something was missing…someone was missing…and that perhaps, just perhaps, he was dreaming.

“Narcissa? Is Draco with you?” a voice called from just outside the bedroom door.

“Yes, Hermione, come in…now where is that silly old elf? Hobbin! Hobbin!”

The soft pop that marked the old elf entering the room frightened Draco and he huddled deeper in his mother’s arms. He stared at the elf with wide eyes. Every thing that he looked at, his mother, Hobbin, the familiar figure stepping through the bedroom door dressed in a long green silk nightgown and robe, was painfully clear and real.

“He was sleepwalking again, wasn’t he?” the younger woman asked the older woman, kneeling next to Draco and placing a cool hand on his forehead.

“This has to stop, Hermione, we need to take him to St. Mungo’s. The Healers will surely know what to do for this…it is becoming frightening…” Narcissa whispered, petting Draco’s hair like she had done when he would have nightmares as a child.

Draco blinked, staring at Hermione Granger’s collarbone and taking in the scent of jasmine wafting from her curls that fell over her right shoulder.

“What is ‘this’? What are you talking about?” Draco muttered lethargically, his voice betraying the exhaustion he was beginning to feel in his bones.

Narcissa pulled away, and moved to Hobbin who stood impatiently at the foot of the bed. And while Draco watched his mother whispering instructions to the elf out of the corner of his eye, Hermione moved closer to him, helping him to his bare feet.

“I hate this, Draco…waking up and finding you gone… It has been years since your father has died and yet you still have nightmares. It is frightening me and your mother…” Hermione chided, ducking under Draco’s left arm to bear his weight on her shoulders.

“What are you talking about, Granger?” Draco drawled, his eyes moving to look at his mother more closely…the lines around her mouth and eyes, the worried expression and the ever-wringing hands.

“Granger? For Merlin’s sake, Draco, you haven’t called me that since we were at Hogwarts!”

Draco’s attention moved to Hermione and her concerned expression. She looked tired, her eyes still as vibrant, but rimmed with red from lack of sleep. She smelled heavenly and the silk gown she wore was clinging to her curves like second skin.

“We’ve been married for ten years and you’re reverting to old schooldays?” Hermione laughed shortly. “We’re going to St. Mungo’s first thing in the morning and you’re going to listen to the Healers and start taking something for the dreams, do you understand?”

Her voice was stern, but the caress of her hand along his back was comforting. And when she wrapped her arms about him to embrace his form, he let himself hold her against him…so warm…so soft…so right.

“Hermione, take him back to your rooms, I have instructed Hobbin to have a bath ready and some sleeping draughts,” Narcissa intoned softly, moving from the foot of the bed to Draco’s side. “And you, Draco Severian Malfoy, you are going to do just as Hermione says and from now on I am going to have the bedroom door warded…no more frightening your mother in her sleep!” Narcissa chuckled, ruffling Draco’s long hair and quickly pulling her hand away. “How in the world did you get so dirty? Did you crawl through an old passage or the attic between the wings of the house?”

Draco, again, blinked. Something was not right…his mother…hadn’t Lucius murdered her?

“Come on then, love, let your mother have her sleep…”

The halls were dimly lit as Draco stumbled to keep up with Hermione. It amazed him how she seemed to know the corridors as well as he, as if she had lived there for years and years. And when they finally came to the doors of the room Draco knew to be his, he found that the interior of the apartments were exactly like he thought they would be…his style, his taste, his rooms.

Into the large bathroom they went, the bath already filled and steaming with bubbles of blue and green floating along with candles above the pool. Draco could only stare passively as he felt Hermione strip the conjured robe from his shoulders. But when she began to undress as well, Draco’s attention was solely upon her.

“What happened to your leg?” Draco asked, his voice sounding slurred in the expanse of the bath.

Hermione giggled, “What do you mean? Is there a bruise I cannot see?” she asked, stepping out of the gown that had slipped down her body to the marble floor.

“Never mind,” Draco whispered as he let Hermione pull him to the bath, her pale body sinking below the waterline. Draco followed, the warmth of the bath soothing his stiff muscles.

Sitting at the edge of the tub, Draco let Hermione drizzle shampoo into his long hair and begin scrubbing…then rinse…then soap over his skin, shoulders, chest, below the water to his hips and thighs. All the while, he sat…wondering at something that was just out of reach of his mind…he was sleepy…he was aroused as Hermione’s hands trailed over his chest, along his jaw.

“Feeling better?” Hermione whispered in his left ear, her breast pressing into his left arm.

Draco sighed, he did feel better…the stiffness gone, as well as the grime that had coated his body. His mind was clearing, but he still felt as if he could sleep for forever and a week. Things were falling into place…memories, feelings…

“Much…I feel like I could really use a good, long sleep…” he yawned, moving his arms so that he took Hermione into his arms, puling her to sit on his lap. She smiled, pressing kisses into his neck.

“You’ve been so distant lately…I was beginning to wonder…if maybe it was something I did or said…and your dreams…we are really going to St. Mungo’s in the morning…” she said, pausing to kiss a different part of his face between her words.

He felt himself grinning, but still…something was not right.

“Whatever you say, Mrs. Malfoy…” he said automatically.